5 Responses to “ReactOS. A Windows OS?”

It works great for some programs, but it’s still alpha software. It’s amazing that it can run what it can run. It’s got its own NT kernel. Most everything .net will NOT run as it is developed directly for win32 stuff. Directx development is being worked on and some directx apps can run on it, but don’t expect any games for a while.

These testing versions are meant for virtual machines, primarily qemu, also works on vmware and many others. Later once most of the kernel is complete then hardware support will start to be added.

Please note that many people do run this on hardware, and it will support all 3rd party drivers at some point.

Many people use Reactos as a reference when they write drivers or programs for windows xp because it is open source. Sometimes it’s impossible to program for windows without knowing what exactly goes on under the hood.

Please mind that ReactOS is currently in Alpha stage, thus we do not recommend running it on the real hardware just yet. An emulator, like Vmware or free Qemu (with KQEMU), will be just fine for testing.

Current branch v. 0.3.1 is not too stable, as it was released in the middle of kernel rewrite. We suggest to use recently built, nightly bootcd, as it contains numerous fixes and improvements.

Soon, a lot more stable v.0.3.2 will be branched, so stay tooned.

We currently aim at Windows Xp/DirectX 9 compatibilty, but we do not want to limit ourselves. Next logical step is Vista/Dx10, then, who knows…

To sum up, we want to provide a Free, Open Source, Windows-binary compatible system, that will be able to completely replace Ms products, to run all Windows apps/games, and to use windows drivers.

We will be gratefull for supporting (we are still hungry for C/ASM devs, especially with Windows hardware/drivers/kernel experience, but also c programmers, artists, designers, translators, testers and any good soul who can help us:) Visit our website for more info, or out IRC channel #ReactOS at irc.freenode.net for live contact with our devs and supporters. Do not hesitate to ask if you need any more info.